California San Fernando Mission

MTC Week 2

So after sending my email last week I had forgotten to talk about this awesome story I had while flying to Utah! Because what’s a mission without a church discussion on an airplane. Sadly I can’t remember all the details, but there was an older gentleman who was in the seat next to me. Literally the whole time I was actually thinking “Hmm I wonder when he’s going to ask me about the gospel” haha. But then he fell asleep and I was all like “dang there goes that idea”. But then he woke up and after a little bit asked me about the book I was reading. “The Continuous Conversion” by Brad Wilcox. Great read by the way. He was actually surprised that I was reading a hard copy of the book and not an electronic version! He admitted he was a little impressed. So then I explained that I was leaving on a mission soon and one of the rules is we can’t bring our own electronic devices. Eventually it spiraled into a small gospel discussion and I was all like “Yes!”. He was from Missouri and had some questions about the history of the Mormons in the area and I did my best to answer his questions. But I didn’t get his contact info! Future missionaries: always bring a pass along card or two with you on the planes! You never know.

So back to this week. It was a fantastic one! Lots of fun stuff I wish I could share but sadly don’t have enough time. First things first, we had our first snow day! I can’t remember the exact date but it was great. One of my companions is from Arizona so it was his first time seeing snow fall. I’ll try to include some pics of his reaction and some others below. It’s starting to get way too cold here for my own comfort haha.

And we got our iPads this week! They are way cool. At first I couldn’t figure out how they could be useful other than for our schedule and such. But after a while I could see how extremely helpful they can be, especially for missionaries in the field. And something all of my teachers have told me is that the most important reason for our iPads is to help missionaries develop healthy digital habits after their mission. That actually really surprised me. But again, it only took me a little bit to understand. Everyone should go watch Elder Bednar’s “Things As They Really Are”. They showed that to us and it was powerful. Elder Bednar is seriously so great.

One specific message I enjoyed this week was one given by Richard I Heaton (I have no idea what his church calling is lol) on the importance of Jesus Christ and his example for us. He made tons of references to Moses’ brazen serpent, a story/analogy I learned to enjoy quite a bit. I had no idea there were so many references of it in the scriptures, specifically the Book of Mormon. I encourage everyone to give that some study. (Spoiler alert: the serpent represents Christ). During that same devotional one Elder and one Sister performed -their own rendition- of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief/I Know That My Redeemer Lives which even thinking about it now gives me chills. It was golden.

Some quick updates: We met our second teacher his week! His name is Hermano Page but I call him Hermano Página, again because I’m hilarious. He’s pretty great as well. I’m convinced that if you work at the MTC than odds are you are great. Also, sadly we’ve reached a point in our zone where the only other district that remains is the one that got here the same day as my district. All the other missionaries were great examples to me. They really established the importance of strong zone bonds which I think really helps morale. We’re sad they’re gone, but I think we’ll be alright. As of right now we only have about 20 missionaries and it sounds like we won’t be getting any new ones for quite some time. So we’re super tiny haha. Other than that all is well!